From the Editor's Desk: Checking in from a couple days off

Checking in from a couple days of R&R in New York City. It isn't often that I get time to do any tourist-type stuff here, let alone with my lovely bride. But I managed to sneak in a few thoughts on the flight up. Enjoy.

So what's next? The major U.S. variants of the HTC One line are all on sale in the U.S. That's the HTC One S on T-Mobile, the HTC One X on AT&T, and, finally, the EVO 4G LTE on Sprint, which is a retooled One X. The Samsung Galaxy S III has been released in a couple dozen countries.

So what's next in the smartphone world?

At some point we're going to get some U.S. announcements for the Galaxy S III. And it's worth taking a look back at the past couple of years. In 2010, with the original Galaxy S, Samsung managed to do the unthinkable -- get all four U.S. carriers into the same room and unveil four versions of the Galaxy S. (I was there. It was magical. Or something.) The phones, as you'll recall, were the Verizon Fascinate, T-Mobile Vibrant, AT&T Captivate -- and a wild card, the Sprint Epic 4G, which added a slider keyboard for good measure.

In 2011, Samsung again gathered the major players in New York to show off Galaxy S II. Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T all were represented, with Verizon on the sidelines. (It instead got the Galaxy Nexus later that year.)

So what's going to happen this year? To be completely honest, we don't yet know. Samsung's made no public announcements yet, nor have any of the carriers. You can bet something's coming though. But where things really get interesting are with last week's leak of what The Verge says is the T-Mobile version of the GSIII. And damned if it doesn't look exactly like the European version. Now, Samsung's clout as a manufacturer is unquestioned. (See the above examples of getting competing carriers to take part in a single event.) Will we really see an unchanged version for the U.S.? (And bloat-free is probably too much to ask, right?)

We'll find out when we find out, I suppose.

Some other musings from the past week:

Speaking of ol' Sammy, let's give credit where credit's due. They announced the Galaxy S III on May 3, and released it within a month. Not too shabby. Of course, we don't have it here in the states …

Lordy, I can't wait for Sprint to get its Network Vision plan up and running. Such a great phone in the EVO 4G LTE. It deserves better data. (Same goes for other top-tier LTE-enabled phones it'll be releasing this year.)

Yes, I got a MacBook Air. No, I'm not getting an iPhone. For me it's more about the portability than anything else. These gear bags get heavy. But it's also been a good experience to see how Android interacts with OS X. For instance, older phones that use traditional universal mass storage connect easily. If you've got something newer that uses MTP, you'll need the Android File Transfer app. No biggie, and it's been fun learning some new stuff, even if it's from the Evil Empire.

Oh, and one last thing. I'm up in New York every couple of months, at least. But it's been a while since my wife's been here. And what's the first question she asks when we get to the hotel? "So, I have 'real' 4G on my iPhone here, right?" Nope. Sorry, babe. Then I proceeded to bore her with radio talk that would make Mickey Papillon proud. But for me, this is the what really stands out: